Because 'tis the season...
http://nativeappropriations.blogspot.com/2011/10/open-letter-to-pocahotties-and-indian.html
Open Letter to the PocaHotties and Indian Warriors this Halloween 'I already know how our conversation would go. I'll ask you to please not dress up as a bastardized version of my culture for Halloween, and you'll reply that it's "just for fun" and I should "get over it." You'll tell me that you "weren't doing it to be offensive" and that "everyone knows real Native Americans don't dress like this." You'll say that you have a "right" to dress up as "whatever you damn well please." You'll remind me about how you're "Irish" and the "Irish we're oppressed too." Or you'll say you're "German", and you "don't get offended by people in Lederhosen."
'But you don't understand what it feels like to be me. I am a Native person. You are (most likely) a white person. You walk through life everyday never having the fear of someone mis-representing your people and your culture. You don't have to worry about the vast majority of your people living in poverty, struggling with alcoholism, domestic violence, hunger, and unemployment caused by 500+ years of colonialism and federal policies aimed at erasing your existence. You don't walk through life everyday feeling invisible, because the only images the public sees of you are fictionalized stereotypes that don't represent who you are at all. You don't know what it's like to care about something so deeply and know at your core that it's so wrong, and have others in positions of power dismiss you like you're some sort of over-sensitive freak.'
...
'Last night I sat with a group of Native undergraduates to discuss their thoughts and ideas about the costume issue, and hearing the comments they face on a daily basis broke my heart. They take the time each year to send out an email called "We are not a costume" to the undergraduate student body--an email that has become known as the "whiny newsletter" to their entitled classmates. They take the time to educate and put themselves out there, only to be shot down by those that refuse to think critically about their choices.Your choices are adversely affecting their college experiences, and that's hard for me to take without a fight.'
Read the whole post, here:
http://nativeappropriations.blogspot.com/2011/10/open-letter-to-pocahotties-and-indian.html Thank you, Adrienne, for writing it.
And if you missed it last year, Heather from Don't Pay to Pray did an excellent piece on the topic:
Halloween: The Most Racist Day of the Year http://dontpaytopray.blogspot.com/2010/10/halloween-most-racist-day-of-year.html
